Why don't the stars in constellations burn out?

Question

We see "shooting stars" and "falling stars" so much that it is some what common, but why don't the stars of constellations burn out?
Will they some how last forever?

Answer 1

A lot of mistakes both in the question and many of the answers.

The question: "shooting stars" and "falling stars" are not stars at all; they are meteors, small pieces of space debris which enter the Earth's upper atmosphere and burn up. Stars don't burn out because they don't burn: they generate their energy by nuclear fusion, which goes on for billions of years in a typical star like the Sun. Stars evolve and change their brightness and colour, but this happens on a huge time scale of millions of years, nothing you would ever detect in your lifetime.

The answers: The most serious mistake is saying stars are thousands or millions of light years away. The stars which make up our constellations are actually quite close to us, within a couple of thousand light years, but most are much closer than that. So if all the stars we see are no more than a couple of thousand years back in time, and their lifetimes are measured in billions of years, the odds of any stars bright enough to make up a constellation disappearing, while their light is on its way to us, are extremely small.

This is not to say that temporary changes in constellations don't occur, because many stars are variable in brightness. Delta Scorpii is currently much brighter than it's been for many years, and Chi Cygni was a naked eye star last summer when usually it's too faint to be seen without a telescope.

Answer 2

I could be wrong. But I think shooting stars are different than Stars that you see in the night. Stars are what our Sun is.. But I could be wrong about what the shooting star is and if I am that is a good question. But I believe that for instance, when our star (sun) starts burn out it will just bigger, darker red, and colder and won't necessarily just fall out of nowhere..Wow. the more I speculate this the more I wonder why I never really thought about it. But I think the shooting star is just an expression for A meteor and when it reaches Earths Atmosphere it is a metoerite. I never really gave much thought to it and asked someone differeniate between shooting star and Meteorite. And your follow-up question as to where these meteorites go then?? well they typically burn-up in the Earths Atmosphere, and don't normally land on the the Surface.

Answer 3

Well although many stars do 'burn out' you have to keep in mind that stars have lifespans of billions of years. So the stars located in constellations thousands of years ago, are probably still viewable today, because of the fact that a few thousand years is akin to the blink of an eye for stars.

Answer 4

Shooting stars are meteorites burning up in the earth's atmosphere; they aren't actually falling stars. Real stars are huge balls of burning gas, like the sun, and they take billions of years to burn out, so within your lifetime you will not notice any visible change in a constellation.

Answer 5

#1 Shooting Stars are Asteroids.
#2 Conestellation stars can already be blown up! But, we have to wait a LONG time before we can tell.
Example, if a star Star X was 52 Light Years away. We would know it blew up in 52 Years.
Nothing last forever.

Answer 6

Shooting stars and falling stars are actually meteors, and they come from chunks of space debris that fall into the Earth's atmosphere and burn up. They're not really stars.
The light from the stars in our constellations actually reaches us many thousands of years after it shines from the stars. By the time we see the light from a star, the real star may not be there. You know the expression "light years"? That means how many years it takes for light to travel, and some stars are hundreds of thousands of light years away.

Answer 7

Give them enough time and they will burn out too. We're talking billions of years. If you could stick around long enough, lets say a few billion years, there's no doubt that the big dipper might look like the big shovel or something else. My point is, stars have a life cycle but many many times many times more than that of a person.

Such realizations make our life here on Earth seem short but I suppose that is all the more reason to enjoy each day, stop and see the beauty of the sky and all of nature and make good use of the time we are given.

Answer 8

well shooting stars arnt really stars but small pieces of rock that burn when coming in are atmosphere stars in constellations are probably huge and far away they could be burnt out lready but it still takes time for the light to reach the earth because they are light years away

Answer 9

All stars eventually "burn out" It takes billions of years for that to happen though, and none of us have been around long enough to notice.

So-called "shooting stars" are *not* actually falling stars. They're nothing more than small bits and pieces of rock that have drifted around in space until Earth's gravity pulled them down.

Answer 10

some of them do, but depending on where the star is (it can be all the way across the solar system), the actual light emitting from the star will still be travelling towards earth despite the star no longer existing (seeing that it takes so long)

stars explode all the time, get a basic kids book, or wikipedia it, type in something like red dwarf, white dwarf, etc...